SCH even better!

[Lemuria]

I suspect many of the changes being made that have people calling HW SCH a "mini-WHM" are primarily intended for situations where DF gives you double-SCH groups.

Hmm, well there's a bit more to it than that. Look at the evidence.

Pre Heavensward Scholar vs White Mage:

White Mage
- Stronger Heals
- Regens
- Long Duration Magic Defense
- Stronger stoneskin (and AoE version)
- Benediction

Scholar
- Mini 'stoneskin' on heals
- Lustrate
- Fairy 'pet' adding extra healing
- Fairy magic defense (short duration)
- Fairy Regen (low potency)
- Sacred Soil

Post Heavensward Scholar vs White Mage:
White Mage
- Regen
- Regen 'dome'
- Stronger Stoneskin
- Benediction

Scholar
- Barriers
- Fairy
- Sacred Soil
- Double-stacked Magic Defense via Fairy
- Fairy Regen
- AoE Eye for Eye

Note that I'm only focusing on healing skills. White Mage's new 'toys' seem to be largely focused on offensive techniques such as tier III spells, with the regen dome and Lustrate-esque skill being the main ones. Basically a lot of what made white mage's more unique has been given out to Scholar. Key to this is healing potency though.

People lament that Scholar's cure for less, but consequently forget they have a portable heal-bot adding it's own potency to the totals. One physick is essentially MORE powerful than Cure II on a White Mage already since it adds your base heal (400 potency) to Eos/Selene's base potency (300) for 700 potency! Cure II is only 650 potency by comparison. This balances out though because Scholar's have a small delay on their pets and a lower base value for Mind.

Take away that though, and there's a bit of an imbalance in Scholar's favor now. I'll wait to see how things all play out, and White Mage remains my favourite simply because we'll still have our regens which adds a huge amount of MP conservation. That said, it's not hard to see why people consider them to be robbing Peter to pay Paul with regards to abilities. White Mage is even 'borrowing' Lustrate from Scholar by getting their own instant cure with a shorter recast.